If you wear socks, this article may pertain to you. Approximately 20% of adults and children who wear socks in the United States experience mental illness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that about 1 in 5 Americans aged 18 and older had a mental illness in 2014 and 1 in 5 children had a seriously debilitating mental disorder. Furthermore, half of all chronic mental illnesses begin by age

14. According to the National Center for Health Statistics 3.4% of adults age 18 and older experienced serious emotional distress in the last 30 days. Although this emotional distress may directly affect over a third of us, it indirectly affects all of us. Emotional distress can lead to relationship difficulties, work difficulties, health problems, and early death.

The Strengthening Our Community (SOC) group was developed in Wagner to give mental health a voice and to develop self-healing strategies within our community. It is comprised of a cross-section of community members from Wagner Community School, Indian Health Service, Wagner Community Memorial Hospital-Avera, Rural Office of Community Services, Lewis and Clark Behavioral Health, Wagner Area Growth, Yankton Sioux Tribe, Wagner Police Department, and Head Start. Their goal is to serve as an anchor agency to connect people and build relationships in the community to reduce isolation, build capacity for preventing, identifying and treating mental illness, and connect people to resources. While there are approximately two hundred identified mental health disorders, Depression, Anxiety, Eating Disorders, Post Traumatic Stress, and Substance Abuse Disorders are among the most familiar. The group was formed following a training provided by ACE Interface, a state-wide initiative to educate communities about the adverse effects of childhood trauma and to build self-healing communities.

SOC hopes to take a playful and normalizing approach to talking about mental health through the use of socks. Socks protect our feet. Everybody wears socks. Socks move us forward. The SOC committee is “kicking off” with an event on January 31 at the boys and girls basketball double-header against Andes Central. The WCS basketball teams “socked” the Andes Central basketball teams, presenting them with socks as a gesture of support. The WCS basketball teams are “standing up” to prevent death by suicide. Other events to learn more about Adverse Childhood Experiences, build relationships and resilience skills, and find resources include a showing of the movie Paper Tigers on Feb. 28 at 6:00 (March 7 reschedule date) at Wagner Theater, Hearts and Minds Dinner and Top 20 Training on Feb. 14, and showing of the movie Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope at the theater in March.

SOC KICKING OFF EVENT JANUARY 31 AT BOYS AND GIRLS BASKETBALL DOUBLEHEADER AGAINST ANDES CENTRAL AS TEAMS WILL BE "SOCKED"